1/21/2-1/29/24, rest 1/30, active 1/31
PC: Valda, Zektel, Brumdor, Cracaryn
Hench: Elizabete
Today the players were back on Team B, looking to capitalize on the previous session’s score that was in transit to the patron who was going to pay them for it. Using 1:1 time means abiding by the calendar so even though they were sure to have a big payout, they still had to worry about logistics. We love logistics.
The group traveled across the map to the Friendship Hills, home of Teutch the Alchemist and Bigtoe the Wombat. Along the way they did a little shopping and Zektel sent a request to Gwendolyn the Goat for a song to be commissioned about his beautiful snake haired girlfriend. When they arrived in Deinwick they found the purple, pink, and gold magical walls that were a product of the Brigstein had been vandalized along the interior with crass anti-Teutch graffiti.
Between Deinwick and Rushford they ran across a small procession carrying a palanquin of a foreign noble. The group’s default signal for parley is for Zektel to hoist his underwear on a stick as a flag. The guards of the procession thought this was pretty funny and chuckled amongst themselves. After a brief chat both sides carried on.
Once across the Friendship Bridge and into the Hills, the party waited on their convoy to arrive. They were dismayed to discover that Mel the Thief henchman had run off with the golden Aquila of the Emperor that they were certain was worth quite a bit. The other goods arrived without issue. Bigtoe offered them some rewards that varied based on whether or not these items were powered by his white whale “purple cake” material. They agreed and decided to get to work on something else while waiting for the dwarf to tinker with the unfamiliar technology of an Astartes chainsword and frag grenade.
That something else turned out to be recon into the Order of Battle for Nekane the Great’s vaults directly to the north. Bigtoe was paying big to find a weakness that he could exploit in Nekane’s domain so the group began to plan their infiltration.
Nekane’s people are known to be a little ornery so they asked the dwarf craftpriest hench Elizabete to help Brumdor get into the vault. A poor 2d6 roll for obedience meant the dwarf hench was not happy with the dwarf on dwarf aggression and opted out. The party left her at the tower.
The guards on Nekane’s vault are characteristically grumpy and the first attempt to gain access does not go well, punctuated by an off-color joke attempted by Zektel who botched the punchline in a true Michael Scott embarrassing moment. The party was run off and decided to wait for a shift change and try again. Waiting in the mountains is dangerous but they were not punished for it.
The second attempt went better and the party was allowed entry and guided to the town far below through twisty confusing tunnels. No one but Brumdor had any chance of getting out the way that they came in. Some terrible attempts at trying to get in good with the locals at the bar led to a different approach. Zektel fabricated a parasitic trench foot type disease that was affecting only dwarves. He absolutely HAD to inspect the dwarven troops to prevent a massive epidemic.
The reaction rolls for this went significantly better, getting the group in front of the Master Armorer. Nekane couldn’t be bothered with it but his right hand felt it couldn’t hurt to have them inspect a platoon just to see. One of the players started offering ideas that Zektel could use the tenets of his order as an excuse to gain access. Zektel was Neutral however and had no order, which led to claims of being part of “Doctors without Orders” to many chuckles.
The party was led through “The Tunnel” to a series of corridors where a platoon of dwarven soldiers were posted to guard. The NCO on duty was skeptical but allowed a quarantined area to be established and a thorough inspection performed of each dwarven soldier. Zektel found a few dwarves showing discolored toenails which he claimed was a serious indication of infection. This was of course bullshit but he used his high ranks in healing to inflict further discomfort on these poor dwarves and ratchet up the symptoms, all pointing at the Trench Foot that culminated in creeping nematodes, allegedly parasites that would burst forth from the foot and required amputation.
Great pains were taken to express how serious this disease was, including advising against any foot on foot contact which we all fell out over. Zektel’s player was on fire. The humor dried up quick when the NCO sent for the dwarven head medical official. When he arrived, he had a miserable roll to determine the cause of the afflicted dwarves’ red, rashy feet. He was suspicious and took the patients away to his own quarantine.
The party sensed that the jig was up but were denied a guide to exit at this late hour. They camped with the dwarven platoon and were sweating being arrested or worse. Overnight they were awoken by the sounds of combat to find a large amorphous blob of shifting flesh, carapace, and teeth attacking the dwarven soldiers on guard. The party joined the battle against the creature, discovering that it was very tough but sporadic, sometimes standing completely still or wailing in pain. It was still able to kill most of the dwarves and nearly Brumdor before the party was able to just run away. They fled down the primary corridor to the entry and their desperate cries for help against “the Trenchfoot Monster” convinced the guards to let them through. The doors were sealed and the session ended back at the Bearded Axe, the tavern that the party visited when they first arrived.
Musings:
I RP’d another of the same player’s high level PCs during this session. He doesn’t always agree with my takes on them but them’s the breaks. I suspect he would have offered much higher payouts for the Astartes equipment but what was offered was fair. I allowed a baseline then a reaction check to dictate whether he went higher or lower. I’m satisfied with the results.
The trench foot epidemic had us all rolling, it was a good time. Clever use of proficiencies to create a problem and offer the solution has developed into an interesting thread. I’m not sure what the players do next here, whether they double down on the trench foot or try to beat feet outta there before they get caught out. We’ll find out soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment